1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a microscope system which can handle a plurality of different observation methods.
2. Description of the Background Art
In recent years, function analyses of living cells have been performed. In these function analyses of the cells, particularly to observe a function of a cell film, a total reflection fluorescent microscope has been noted which acquires an evanescent fluorescent image from the cell film and the vicinity of the film.
In Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 11-231222, one example of the scanning type laser microscope has been described. To handle a plurality of fluorescent dyestuffs, this scanning type laser microscope synthesizes laser beams oscillated from a plurality of laser sources into one laser beam, scans and irradiates a specimen via an objective lens as a point source, detects an observation light of a fluorescent light or reflected light from the specimen with an optical detector via the objective lens again, and obtains two-dimensional information. This scanning type laser microscope uses a confocal effect to acquire only information of a focused surface, and is used as an effective observation method in slice observation of a thick specimen.
On the other hand, in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2001-272606, one example of the total reflection fluorescent microscope is described. The total reflection fluorescent microscope focuses the laser beam oscillated from the laser source in a rear-side focal position of the objective lens from an emission end surface of an optical fiber via a condensing optical system, and emits the laser beam from the objective lens in an inclined manner with respect to an optical axis to irradiate the specimen, so that fluorescent observation by an evanescent light is possible. For the total reflection fluorescent microscope, since a lighting range is limited to a depth approximately corresponding to a wavelength of laser for use as the light source, the fluorescent light as background is very little, and the microscope is used as the observation method effective in observing a cell film surface or one fluorescent dyestuff molecule localized in the vicinity of a cover glass surface.
Additionally, for these scanning type laser microscope and total reflection fluorescent microscope, the optical fiber is used, but each microscope handles only one observation method. Therefore, for example, when the confocal scanning type laser microscope and total reflection fluorescent microscope are used in fluorescent observation of one specimen labeled with the fluorescent dyestuff, the specimen has to be moved between the microscopes. Therefore, particularly at a time of the observation of a state in the same position on the specimen, a problem occurs that a remarkably difficult operation is forced to be performed in order to search for the same position on the specimen in each apparatus.